Hey there, if you're listening to this and you support us on Patreon, you can hear it via the Patreon page ad-free. You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week, we're getting ready for Halloween with songs about witches and ghosts.
I'm Jim DeRogatis.And I'm Greg Kott.Let's get into it.Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island.Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in the spirit of Chicago.
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Greg, to celebrate this season, we're combining two of our spookiest episodes for an extra scary Halloween show.Later, we'll hear some of our favorite songs about ghosts from a few years back.
But first, we revisit songs about witches, and that aired four years ago.What happened four years ago, Jim?Well, it seems like a lifetime since.
seeing ladies with cats in the news and I don't understand because they're not talking about witches, but we are.
We're right on it as usual.Well said, Jim.We had a lot of great songs to choose from when we made this, so let's hear what you picked first.
I'm going to start with one of my all-time favorite songs by the Kinks.You know, in the mid-60s, all of the great British bands had their turn at going whole hog psychedelic or partly psychedelic.The Kinks, you know, were always more about
the songwriting and the sociological observations of Ray Davis, right?But Wicked Annabella is a great, freaky, kind of psychedelic rock song about a witch named Annabella.
A little dark and sinister, the melody, the lyrics, you know, telling us, setting the scene very novelistically in a dark and misty house where no Christian man has been.Wicked Annabella mixes a brew that no one's ever seen.
Kind of a cliche of the evil witch, not the good white wiccan, but you gotta love it.And it's done with good humor and a great time.And you know, there are lots of little demons, Greg, enslaved by Annabella, as the kinks will now tell us.
The Immortal Wicked Annabella by the Kinks.
Mr. Cott, have you got a witch song?I do indeed, Jim.We both hit on this one and I think it's in some ways obvious, Season of the Witch by Donovan.And I don't see how we could have left it out of this show.I just think it's really, it's a song.
And the reason I think we both love it is it connects on so many levels.It's not just a song about a witch per se, but about a mood, an atmosphere, a sense of impending doom, paranoia.
It was written and recorded by Donovan in 1966 and his whole perception at that time was sort of this lightweight balladeer from Scotland who is sort of a wannabe Dylan.
And I think this song kind of reset the balance a little bit, like there's something a little more deep about this song than maybe we gave this man credit for.
And consider that this is 1966, this is the year before the Summer of Love, and he was already talking about darker times ahead.
So I think in many ways just sort of looking past this sort of glorified Age of Aquarius feel-good vibe that was going on at the time in youth culture and seeing something more sinister.
You always hear that song in documentaries and films about the Manson clan, the murders, and Altamont.Donovan saw the clouds on the horizon.
Absolutely, and this song's been covered numerous times.Lana Del Rey most recently covering it for that Scary Stories film, very appropriate subject matter for that.
And, you know, with Donovan here, what was interesting to me about this one is that he and his partner at the time, the collaborator musically, Sean Phillips, you know, they wanted sort of this rock combo feel to it and so they just recruited these guys who were playing in the clubs.
And, you know, there's the rumor going on that Well, you know, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page were doing a ton of sessions at that time in the London scene.Did they play on this record?Because apparently they played on other Donovan records.
And I once asked the question to Jimmy Page.He looked at me and goes, do you have another question, Greg? Didn't even want to go there.I'm not answering that question.
Paige, who may or may not be a warlock, but we're doing witches on this show.
Correct.So we have the very witchy season of The Witch by Donovan on Sound Opinions.
You've got to pick up every stitch.You've got to pick up every stitch.You've got to pick up every stitch.
Donovan's Season of the Witch, a great pick, Greg, and dive into our archives.We had a wonderful chat with Donovan some years ago.I'm going next to Jethro Tull, Greg.
You know I have a real deep and abiding fondness for Jethro Tull, at least up until Songs of the Wood, and I really could choose that entire album as a great kind of
Pagan, romping through the woods, naked in the moonlight, kind of around the bonfire sort of album, right?
But the song I'm actually going to highlight is titled The Witch's Promise, and it comes from the third album early in Jethro Tull's career, Benefit.The Witch's Promise was a single, 1970. And it has the first great lineup of Jethro Tull.
Ian Anderson, of course, on vocals and flute, and Martin Barre's on guitar.Really underrated drummer, Clive Bunker, and John Heaven doing piano and Mellotron, OK?Lend me your ear while I call you a fool.
You were kissed by a witch one night in the wood.I swear, if there's 300 Jethro Tull songs, 298 of them mention the wood. And you know, I mean, it's a classic American trope, right?Nathaniel Hawthorne, witches, woods, pagans, evildoing.
I mean, you know, you gotta have Jethro Tull in a witch's song list.So here they are, The Witch's Promise. The Witch's Promise by the immortal Jethro Tull.Thank you for letting me play Tull.
I don't get to do that often enough.You do love them.You have a sweet spot for Jethro Tull.I have a sweet spot for Martha and the Vandellas.
One of my favorite Motown acts of all time, Martha Reeves, one of the great vocalists of all time from the Motown stable of great singers. Motown was unnoted for its albums at the time.
It was not an album era in Motown, it was a singles era and the albums usually just were vehicles for releasing, you know, putting those singles on there and then surrounding them with filler.
I would make the case, however, though, in 1965 that Martha and the Vandellas did in fact put out a pretty damn great Motown record called Dance Party.And it fulfilled its promise.It basically was filled with dance tunes.
In addition to Nowhere to Run and Dancing in the Street, it had a bunch of other lesser known songs that filled the bill.One of those was titled Mobile Lil, the Dancing Witch. Silly title, kinda silly lyrics.
Mobile Lil apparently had the ability to not only create every dance known to man at the time, but also to stop them at a certain hour every night.So she had these magical powers over the dance floor.
She had no other skills as a witch other than at the dance floor.Which in the 60s, if you were a young person in the 60s, that was a pretty big deal, right?
you know and it's a silly song admittedly but you know once again the Motown rhythm section they don't care what the lyrics are talking about they are getting down playing you know some funky R&B based soul music in Detroit and you can hear on this that rumbling bass I love the percussive piano on this and that sort of funky groove that they get you know
It wasn't necessarily a funk label.Funk wasn't really a term being thrown around back then, but this song's funky.And it is Martha and the Vandellas with Martha Reeves.Can sing the phone book and make it sound great.Yes.She does on this one.
Mobile Lil, The Dancing Witch on Sound Opinions.
Mobile Lil, The Dancing Witch.
Jim, you're up next.I am, Greg, and I know you love this band as well.Monster Magnet, led by the absolutely devilish Dave Windorf of Red Bank, New Jersey, fellow homeboy in Jersey.
You know, there was a real high point in the late 90s, early 2000s, when Dave's stoner rock band, Monster Magnet, was ascended, even made it onto the charts with a track called Space Lord from this album I'm going to highlight, Power Trip in 1998.
The great thing about Dave is he's super smart, he's very funny, and he really loved and understood inside out, upside down, psychedelic metal, stoner rock, just hard rock, and could play with all the tropes.
and appeal to you on one level just as banging your head on the wall, but on another, thinking about it while you were banging your head up against the wall.
19 Witches is less obvious, I think, than any other witch song we're highlighting for this Halloween show. You know, no direct mention, really, of the witch.
A lot of bizarre lyrics about a snake inside a jar and a psychotic submarine and I was born in Vietnam, a sacrifice.Kind of like Season of the Witch, an overall theme of impending doom. 19 witches, why are there 19, not 20?I do not know.
But, you know, I leave this for you to ponder at home in front of the lava lamp while preparing to hand out Halloween candy.Monster Magnet, 19 witches on Sound Opinions.
You're what you say you are
19 Witches by the Mighty Monster Magnet.And boy, do I miss that band.It was a great band.
They were so entertaining on so many levels.Dave Windorf, a really smart guy.You know, you may not think so, but he's like one of the smartest guys we've ever interviewed.For sure.And I do miss them. I'm gonna go to Radiohead next, Jim.
I think that people who said they couldn't make great singles anymore were put on notice in 2016 when they came out with Burn the Witch.I just think that is one of the most stunning songs of the last decade.
and it was the opening track on a Moon Shaped Pool, their 2016 album.It's a song that they'd been working on for almost a couple of decades.
It started around the Kid A era, around the turn of the century, and they'd been working on it for subsequent albums, never quite got it where they wanted it, but the key to the track was the string section that they had on.
Johnny Greenwood, the maestro of the string arrangements on Radiohead Records,
was working on this and they hit upon the idea of having the strings played with guitar plectrums to give them a more of a percussive sound and that really adds to the mood of this particular record so that, you know, the strings are chopping along and then they become progressively more diabolical sounding as the song progresses
And, you know, the idea here is, you know, burn the witch, the Salem witch trials, the whole idea of a witch hunt, mob rule, you know, people deciding who is with us, who is against us.
You know, if you don't look like me, if you don't think like me, if you make me feel uncomfortable, you know, we're going to get you. that whole attitude.
And New York was talking about the idea of the immigrant crisis constantly going on, where people were constantly pointing at the other and saying, you don't belong here.And there's been variations on this throughout human history.
And just we're in the midst of the latest incarnation of this horrible trend even now.A song that remains relevant, sadly so, Burn the Witch from Radiohead on Sound Opinions. That is Radiohead with Burn the Witch on Sound Opinions.
Jim, you've got another song about witches for us, right?
I do.I'm going to wrap up my witch picks, Greg, with a tune by Betty LeVette.Betty LeVette's one of those great stories in the history of R&B or soul.She started singing in her bedroom really young.
and went in two weeks time from bedroom entertaining her parents to having a song at number seven on the R&B charts while she was living in Detroit.My man, he's a loving man. And then nothing from Betty all the way from 1963, really.
I mean, she was recording, but never dented the charts or the popular consciousness she deserved again until 2005 with an album called I've Got My Own Hell to Raise.I think many people today who know Betty LeVette as a
a great singer in soul, blues, rock and roll, funk, gospel, country music, all of that.Nowhere from 2005 without knowing the young woman in Detroit who gave us Witchcraft in the Air.
First single hit big, second single didn't do anything, and the third single did even less.This was the third single.Witchcraft in the Air, though, is a great good time Halloween song.It starts with the sound of the witches cackling.
And then, you know, various points in the tune, we get the cauldron bubbling in the background.It's a good-natured, I think, good-natured fun portrait of witches.Again, I'm pro-witch, Greg.
I'm 100% pro-witch, and I hate to see them denigrated unjustly.I think this is one of those great, yeah, let's, you know, life is better when you're in witch songs.Witchcraft in the Air by Betty LeBette.
I'll make you love me too
1963, that song's a year older than me.Witchcraft in the Air, Betty LeVette.I love that.
It's amazing.Her voice was just incredible back then.It's amazing that it took her so long to really catch on.But Betty LeVette's been great for a long time and I think the sentiment in that song, Florence Welch would certainly agree with it.
Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine fame. You know, I don't know if you've ever interviewed Florence, but she is a hoot.She is just really a fun, vibrant interview subject.
And she talks openly about being a kid, just being this weird kid who was into the supernatural as a child, as a diversion from what was going on in her household.Her parents were going through a divorce.
And she would fantasize, I'm a witch, and her friends, they would play, you know, we're in this coven and we're doing these kind of weird experiments, you know, we're going to make these boys fall in love with us by casting a spell on them.
And she took that concept into the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album in 2015. She conceived of it as sort of the idea of a modern-day Hollywood witch story.
You know, what happens if we take this idea of a witch casting a spell and it goes awry, and put it and set it in this decadent place called Hollywood, which was where she was staying at the time.
So that's the sense behind the song called Which Witch.The fact that she was able to take this childhood fantasy and bring it up to date in this very adult world that she was now finding herself in, You know, it's fascinating.
And I think, to me, it sort of indicates the lasting imprint that Halloween leaves on us.You know, it's one of those children holidays that we never quite grow up and become like, oh, we're over that.There's stuff about that that still lingers.
I don't know about you.I don't trust anybody who doesn't love Halloween.I think it's just the most amazing holiday, if you could call it that, you know?And here we have Florence and the Machine celebrating it.Which Which on Sound Opinions.
That is Witch, Witch from Florence and the Machine, and that wraps up our songs about witches.When we return, we'll revisit our favorite songs about ghosts.That's coming up on Sound Opinions.
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And we are back.We're going to keep the spooky tracks coming and revisit some songs about ghosts.Jim, let's hear what you picked.
I'm gonna start off with a classic Rocky Erickson track from back in 1981, the evil one.The late great Rocky Erickson of the 13th floor elevators and a fantastic solo career. was, of course, obsessed with horror movies.
Given his trepidatious state of mind, many people said he lived in a horror movie.You never doubted when he was singing with that fantastic voice that he was seeing the things he was talking about.
And Rocky said it quite simply, if you have ghosts, Mr. Cod, then you have everything. And he wanted to make it clear in this song.It's one of those great Rocky songs.
There's only about five or six lines of lyric that repeat, and the melody drives the entire song.Wine never does that.So don't be telling me I'm two in my cups, and that's why I'm seeing ghosts.These ghosts are my friends.
And if you have ghosts, you have everything.Rocky Erickson.
You have doors.You have everything.You can say anything you want.You can do anything you want.You have doors.
Rocky Erickson, if you have ghosts, then you have everything.I also love the John Wesley Harding cover of this on that Rocky tribute album.
Yeah, that's great stuff.And, you know, you're right about Rocky.He had a very interesting relationship, shall we say, with the afterworld, the other world, you know, sometimes living in those places instead of in reality.
And his music was all the more amazing because of it. Ian Curtis of Joy Division did not have a friendly relationship with ghosts.In fact, you know, you talk about a guy being haunted.
He wrote many songs that dealt with mysteries of life and how he couldn't fathom how they were affecting him.He met it head-on in the song called Dead Souls, which to me amazes me.It came out in 79 and was a B-side.
In retrospect, I think it's one of Joy Division's greatest songs.It was recorded and released less than a year before Ian Curtis took his own life on the eve of a Joy Division American tour.
Now everybody likes to look back and parse Joy Division lyrics for Ian presaging his death. Yeah.And this song lends itself to that sort of scrutiny.
Someone take these dreams away that point me to another day, a duel of personalities that stretch all true realities.Here's a guy who's haunted by something in his life, And that chorus, they keep calling me.
And, you know, you mentioned my love for Halloween.I have a little soundtrack going when the kids come up and, you know, try to scare the crap out of them while they're looking for candy.Your front yard is like, you know, Halloween world.
Oh yeah, exactly.Pass by my house, you know which one it is.That's the Halloween house.Of course, our whole block does it up really well.
But anyway, they keep calling me, and a haunting song by Joy Division and Ian Curtis from 1979 on Sound Opinions. Ian Curtis, Haunted by Ghosts on Dead Souls, a B-side that stands up with the greatest works of Joy Division.
Jim, what do you got next for us?
I'm going to the Psychedelic Furs, Greg.You know, I love this band, and we've only played them rarely.We should do an album dissection or something at some point. Mirror Moves, their 1984 release, is not my favorite.
It's when they're really starting to get synth poppy, moving away from the European sun, velvet underground origin of the first couple of albums.But Richard Butler's voice is always fantastic, and this band had an unerring way with a hook.
I'm gonna play The Ghost in You.What do ghosts mean in literature and in lyric? You know, often it is something we are carrying inside of us and nothing is heavier to carry than lost loves, past loves, you know, loves that did not go right.
You know, falling over you, angels fall like rain and love is all of heaven away.The ghost in you, she don't fade. Yeah, I can relate to that.I have got some ghosts in that manner.Psychedelic furs, the ghost in you. I do love the Psychedelic Furs.
Yeah, I think their first album is their best.It is fantastic.I'd go with the first three, being pretty great.They're all pretty good.I'm sticking in that same general area, Jim.1977, a few years before the Psychedelic Furs, obviously.
one of the original punk bands, in fact one of the bands that started using punk as one of their marketing slogans in a perverse way, you know, they embraced it.
Not a traditional punk band by any stretch in that they were basically a Farfisa organ and a vocalist and then a Farfisa became a synth and then they started using crude drum machines, but it was a very stripped-down electronic sound, pre-staging post-punk and industrial and dance music of future generations with their
early records, which were widely misunderstood.But I think truly amazing pieces of work that stand the test of time, to use a phrase, has been overused for many, many, in many instances, but in this case, very appropriate.
They loved the whole idea of horror and the whole notion of those ghostwriter Marvel comic book characters.They embraced that wholly.Yeah, they did.
So the Ghostwriter comic book issue titled Satan Suicide provided the name of the band and the song Ghostwriter on their self-titled debut album from 1977 is one of their signature tracks.
It was not a hit so to speak in its day but it has since been covered by countless punk bands, embraced as one of the great songs from that era. Martin Revan, Alan Vega, man, what a combination.
Alan Vega's vocals, you know, you never got a straight vocal from Alan Vega.It was either like this mumbly whisper that sounded like it was coming from another dimension to this just blood-curdling scream.
So you talk about a soundtrack for Halloween, Suicide will provide one.Here they are with Ghost Rider on Sound Opinions. Ghost Rider, Haunting Our Dreams, Suicide is the name of the band on Sound Opinions.
You know, we have to have a discussion sometime, because I never appreciated suicide.
Well, they were a terrifying band live, too.
Yeah, I saw them late in their career, and I'd heard that, and I just thought they were boring.Yeah?But they were on the way out already, you know, someday.Maybe that tainted me.Sticking with Ghost Riders, Greg,
Alright, you know, you're sitting in your brainstorm and you're thinking, I gotta come up with songs about ghosts.And obviously, Ghostwriters in the Sky is one of the most obvious and classic.I'm gonna try not to be quite so obvious.
Johnny Cash covered it in 1979 on the album Silver.Now, first of all, anything Johnny Cash sings sounds like Halloween. You know, Johnny Cash, another man.It's pretty dark, yeah.I believe, familiar with seeing ghosts in his life.
You know, and this is one of those songs that is right on the cusp between absurd and ridiculous and brilliant.
You know, those opening lines, an old cowboy went riding out one dark and windy day upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way when all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw. You know, Ghost Riders in the Sky.I love it.Red-Eyed Cows.
It doesn't sound so frightening, but there's something about this song that is in a melodramatic, Halloween-y way, especially sung by Johnny Cash.
Yeah, I would agree with that.I've loved this song forever, you know, but the Cash version is probably the definitive one.
Yeah, and it's still cheesy. It's true, but you know, cheesy Johnny Cash, I mean, it's not a bad thing.No, I know.We could debate some of the Rick Rubin, but this is long before that.Johnny Cash, Ghost Riders in the Sky.
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky.For he saw the riders coming hard, and he heard their mournful cries.
Yippee-yi-yo, Mr. Cott.Yippee-yi-yay.I know.Cheesy or not, I still love that song.I don't know.Something about it gets to me.Speaking of Johnny Cash, he does a terrific version of the song I want to play next, as have many artists.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds did a terrific version of it.The Band, Joan Baez, Cherry Garcia, Mike Ness of Social Distortion. Everybody's covered this song, it seems like.
It's such an iconic song, Long Black Veil, originally a country ballad sung by Lefty Frizzell in 1959.It is a song told from the point of view of a man falsely accused of murder and executed for said murder.He had an alibi.
He was with his best friend's wife that night, but he refused to mention that as an alibi because he knew that he would essentially destroy her life and his best friend's life.
So rather than expose this sin, quote-unquote, that he was committing, he took it to his grave.
And he's singing from the grave.It's an unbelievably chilling song when you hear it, and I think the best version for my mind
This is going to upset some people, but this artist named Caroline Herring did a version of Long Black Veil that has stuck with me ever since I heard it.
I have no idea who Caroline Herring is.
I'll tell you how I know about her.This is from her 2009 album, but a decade earlier I'd seen her at South by Southwest.She just put her first album out and she did a showcase at South by in the early 2000s, I believe.
And I just thought it was incredible.And what I loved about it was the simplicity of the performance.It's very stripped down.She never oversang any of the lyrics.It was just straightforward.
The beauty of that voice, the starkness of those lyrics and the arrangements just really haunted me.You talk about being haunted by a song, this is that song.Long Black Veil, Carolyn Herring, Unsound Opinions.
I had been in the arms of my best friend's wife.She walks these hills in a long black veil.She visits my grave when the night winds wail.Nobody knows.Nobody sees.
That is Carolyn Herring with Long Black Veil.Coming up, we're going to share some more of our favorite songs about ghosts for our Halloween-themed show.That's in a minute on Sound Opinions. and we are back.
This week we've been revisiting songs about ghosts just in time for Halloween.I've got a few more picks and I know Jim does as well.Um, Robin Hitchcock.
I was wondering who we were going to get, Tam. Ghosts can be funny, you know, and Robin Hitchcock is wickedly funny.I remember seeing him perform this song originally when it came out, that tour that led to the live album, My Wife and My Dead Wife.
I guess it's not so funny, but it has that surrealist Dada is British humor.You know, my wife lies down in a chair.She peels a pear.I know she's there.She's making coffee for two, just me and you, but comes back with coffee for three.
My wife is always here.My dead wife is always here too.And Robin doesn't seem that bummed out about it.I guess it's good to have company. Robin Hitchcock, My Wife and My Dead Wife. I love the conversation there with the ghost, Greg.
When the ghost says, you know I don't take sugar in my coffee.It's all about coffee.Coffee with the wife and the dead wife.You know, in no other circumstance would I be laughing at a dead wife.
Yeah, there is sort of a, you know, a dark comedy element to it.So a lot of songs have that.
It's a funny song.It's a funny, what else you got?
I have a song by the Ravenettes, a Danish indie rock duo that has been going for a couple decades now and I love this band.It's a co-ed duo.They say they were inspired by the Everly Brothers.
Their harmonies were inspired by the Everly Brothers, which sounds kind of, you know, what, really?And at the same time they're combining this harmonizing vocal style over, you know, electroshock guitars and these electronic elements underneath that.
So you've got these driving, very dark songs, you know, topped by these vocals that were inspired by a fifties rock and roll duo.It's an interesting combination that has led to some fascinating albums.
I always have found them entrancing and also their love of gothic elements in their music really coming to the fore in a 2011 album called Raven in the Grave. You know, you can't get more gothic than that title.
The song I'm going to play, Apparitions, this is the first song I think we're going to play in our set here, where they're talking about the effects of war on a person.
You know, the idea that you've killed somebody, maybe multiple people in a conflict, in a war, and you're haunted by these people that you don't even know. But you realize you've snuffed out their life.
And they sort of take that perspective in the song.Obviously taking some artistic license here, I don't think either one of the members of the Ravenettes were actually in a war firing a gun at somebody.
But I'm sure they've had experiences like that with friends or just even reading the news or whatever. Here's an example of a soldier haunted by the lives he took in the war.
There's a part where the synths start to wash in that really gets me every time.We're going to play that little bit of the song for you as well.Here's the Ravenettes with Apparitions on sound opinions. Ravenettes with Apparitions on Sound Opinions.
Jim, you've got another one for us, right?
I do, Greg.I almost felt guilty about going to the Mekon's Ghosts of American Astronauts.
It's a great song.You know, we've played it on the show several times.I remember once we did a live session with the Mekons, and I begged them.I said, hey, please.And I was thinking about this song.
If I had to choose, and if you had to choose, this would be a great show to do at some point. like the five greatest songs of all time, in your opinion, right?This is so far up there.
Now, you are a bigger Mekons fan than me, but I just think this is a perfect song.There's nothing I would change about it.Sally Tim's vocals are so ethereal.The idea that the moon landing is staged in a back lot in Houston, the way she says Houston,
Kills me, kills me, right?
And Nixon sips a dry martini while he watches it.Why?It's a nice break from Vietnam, right?Opium for the masses, distract the public.Now, I know the MECONs, John Lankford and Sally, don't think the moon landing was staged, you know.But this notion of
Just wag the dog, distracting people from something horrible with something else and just the idea of – there are many great ghost songs about lost astronauts. Major Tom, and just... Space Oddity.Floating in space, and just... Rocket Man.
Yeah, yeah, never coming back, you know, the ultimate graveyard full of ghosts.Anyway, a perfect song from 1988's So Good It Hurts, the Mekons, Ghosts of American Astronauts.
Ghosts of American Astronauts, the Mekons.
That's a good show.Perfect songs.That's a perfect song.I would agree with you.I love that song as well.And I'm going to play a song in a similar kind of vein by a band that I love, Lady Tron.You know, I've been sort of...
sticking with a lot of bands that come from an electronic background.You know, Suicide, Ravenettes, now Lady Tron.And I was thinking about it.Why so many songs in this particular genre?
I just think electronic instrumentation lends itself to otherworldly sounds.It helps the backdrops, the haunted atmosphere.
Well, you know, I mean theremins lead to analog synthesizers.Those are the soundtrack of every science fiction horror movie, you know. But also, you just don't know.There's ghosts in those machines.
You know, I have three or four of them in the other room.You never, despite claiming you're a keyboard player, never play with my synthesizer.You know, you turn it on.I thought it was off limits.I didn't realize I was able to just jump in there.
You can hop on my Moog anytime.You know, you turn it on, you turn a knob, you have no idea what you did, and all of a sudden there's the ghost of a giant elephant in the room. I love those machines.
Yes, speaking of the ghosts in the machine, there's a ghost in me, go the lyrics here, who wants to say, I'm sorry doesn't mean I'm sorry.Kind of having it both ways.
But the whole idea of living with regrets, how those regrets can be the ghost in you, can be the ghost inside your head. And this song definitely plays with that notion.Again, the electronics, the vocals, and the lyrics all go together very well.
The name of the song is simply Ghosts, and I think it fits the subject matter very well.Lady Tron on Sound Opinions. That's Lady Tron with her 2008 song, Ghosts.Jim, you've got one more for us, right?
I do have one more song, Greg.I figure, you know, there's always great new music coming out.I'm going to go to those under-heralded Chicago garage rock heroes, the gold stars. They put out a special Halloween single.
Long-running band in Chicago, lots of lineup changes, people come and go through the Gold Stars.Always a delightful garage rock party revolving around Matt Sal Faveza.And this new single, Stroll in Hell,
He kept begging me, you know, give it a listen, maybe it'll fit your Halloween show.And I said, well, are there any ghosts?He said, well, the guy in the song is dead and he goes to hell.I was like, all right, that's a ghost, right?
While he is in hell, he meets the whole cast of characters from the Universal Horror Pictures.Frankenstein, Frankenstein's bride, the mummy, invisible man, 50-foot woman.I think they were trying to do an update to the Monster Mash.
The Monster Mash, of course, is a classic Halloweens, right?But you know, it's one of those songs, and there's so many of them at Christmas too, that having heard it several thousand times, I never need to hear it again.
But the idea of this 50s sock hop dance party happening in hell with all the universal monsters is, all right, this is good.This should be the new Monster Mash.This is Chicago's Gold Stars with Stroll in Hell.
Uh-oh, guess the big guy sent me down here.I wasn't so good, guess that's clear.When I opened my eyes, now what did I see?Dracula up in my grill yelling, boo to me.
Hey, Sid, I'm just messing with you, man.Welcome, my old stranger.I have a plan.
Let me down, a creepy tunnel, fire sticking my head. Screaming
Stroll in hell, Greg, with the ghosts and every other monster you can name from the Gold Stars.
There's a pleasant sentiment.We're gonna go deeper into the Merc.Last song, I can't think of a better one than Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath.First song on their first self-titled album.
Basically a mission statement for the band, an entire genre of heavy metal, and I think for this show in a lot of ways. Geezer Butler, the bassist in the band, he was the guy haunted by ghosts.He was the guy who had these visions.
He was the guy who was saying, you know, we can turn these horror movie scenes that we are playing in our heads and that we're seeing in the movie theaters and make rock songs about them. It was a revelation back then.
When you combine that with those double-tracked Ozzy vocals and those titanic riffs from Tony Iommi and the bells, the funeral bells ringing, you've got six minutes of sheer terror which we're gonna play just a snippet of.
See, I never thought of it as a ghost song until you chose it as one of you, but what is this that stands before me?
Well, there's a vision standing there.It is a ghost.
It's the devil, but it's also a vision.Apparently, the story goes that Geezer woke up one night and saw this vision at the foot of his bed and wrote a song about it.Drugs would do that.Holy mackerel.What a song.
Black Sabbath with Black Sabbath on Sound Opinions.
What is this that stands before me?A figure in black which points at me And start to run
Oh, Black Sabbath with the Black Sabbath track.It really, the roadmap for everything they would do is right there.Oh, yeah.Absolutely.That wraps up our mashup of songs about witches and ghosts.But as always, we want to hear from you.
Got a song about your favorite Halloween entity?Leave us a voice message on our website, soundopinions.org, or start a conversation on our Facebook group, Gotta Dig Deeper Than the Monster Mash.
Mr. Kott, what do we have coming up on the show next week?
Next week, Jim, we had a great live event and interview with the band Umphreys McGee.They just keep filling big theaters and arenas around the country.It was about time we caught up with them, and we did.Don't forget to listen to our bonus podcast.
I'm the player of your choice as well.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this program belong solely to Sound Opinions and not necessarily to Columbia College Chicago or our sponsors.Thanks as always to our Patreon supporters.
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